


i'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice (leave the lights on)

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bi Dean, Character Study, Demisexual Castiel, Disregard Canon and Chronology for Feelings and everything will be fine, Fix-it fic, HEA, Implied First Time, Implied Sexual Content, Jack's Heaven, M/M, Post canon, references to Canon typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28706076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: In the beginning, Castiel was a perfect soldier.Until Dean Winchester convinced him to be otherwise.He didn't do anything in particular to convince Castiel to shift loyalties; it was over the moment Castiel held Dean's soul in his hands. The rest is history. The rest is fallout. The rest is a love story; it doesn't have to be a ghost story.[a pre/post-canon fix-it]
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	i'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice (leave the lights on)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aglarond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aglarond/gifts).



> This fic starts in first person, but is only there very briefly if that isn't your favorite thing. I promise there's a reason for it!
> 
> [also, the working title for this was "insert siken quote here" but let's be real, it wasn't ever going to be _not_ from "You are Jeff"]
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

In the beginning, I am.

I am given a sword. I am a soldier of Heaven. I am the angel of Thursday. I am a servant of God, my Father.

I am trusted amongst His creations; I am loyal; I am strong; I am silent.

There are orders, in the beginning. 

And I am a soldier of Heaven. I am listening. I am ready.

* * *

After the beginning, there is discord. There are humans, untrustworthy, and untrusting. Disloyal. They are not silent. They are not strong. They are not ready for existence, but they are there anyway. I am a soldier of Heaven; my Father knows I am ready. 

After the beginning, there are battles. There are brothers, lying broken and bleeding and dead on the battlefield. 

The humans do not know this war as it happens; those that learn of it turn it into pretty fairy tales and myths about precious beings with golden wings and halos, driving back the night and darkness and terror with flaming swords on their behalf. 

I am not a myth. I am not a fairy tale. There is nothing beautiful about my form. If the humans saw it, they would die for what I am. I am power. And they are not ready. I am winged, but my wings are made of grace and light and fear of the Lord, my God, my Father. I drive back my brothers, not darkness. My brothers fall beneath my blade. 

I am not permitted to weep; grief is not among my orders.

(I weep. I grieve. My brothers.)

I am a soldier of Heaven; my eldest brothers tell me, long after the beginning, of a weapon that will end the war for good. The sword of Heaven - and who better to wield this blade than the loyal soldier, the greatest general. 

The sword of Heaven has been taken to Hell, my eldest brothers say.

The sword of Heaven is a man, they say.

I am sent to Hell. I am to grip the sword of Heaven, and raise it. I am meant to take his soul in my hands and turn it onto the Heavens so that he may be flesh made willing to save us all. 

I touch the sword of Heaven. In a moment, I see it all flash before me, winnowing down into one flash of light. 

I am not ready.

* * *

You could never be ready for this. 

You grip Dean Winchester tight, and you see his soul for what feels like eons, longer than the length of time you have already seen stretched out before and behind you. You hold him and raise him from perdition, and you see, _oh,_ you see how he fights against being saved. He does not think he deserves this.

For millennia, you had thought humans presumptuous. Insatiable. Greedy. Pathetic. Demanding. Entitled. Violent. Weak. You were not ready for this, this soul, this man, this grief.

His soul flutters against your hands and you see Dean Winchester as though you are viewing him through transparent panes of glass, cooling from the fire. He ripples at the edges, flings himself against your hands, resonates inside your grace as you wrap yourself around him and your wings beat back against the Pit and launch you both up and away from the blood of his soul still crying out on the chains that had bound him.

You return him to his physical being. You leave. You cannot stay near him, not now that you have seen the truth of him.

You have never questioned anything a day in your long existence. And in his short life, he has never stopped asking.

You are not ready for Dean Winchester.

* * *

He needs you. He needs you, he needs you, he needs you. And then, he needs you again. And you come. Every time he calls, you come, and if you cannot come, your grace shakes so hard inside you, you fear it will shatter the vessel you have borrowed. 

[A year into knowing him, you find yourself wondering if he finds your vessel pleasing. You have seen his eyes darken in your direction more than once; you have learned what carnality is - Dean Winchester is both the most carnal and the most pure being you could ever devise - and you realize it is lust filling your throat and clinging to your grace and tamping down your wings and driving you to distraction. You do not understand him and yet you know him perfectly, and you still do not know if he would find your form pleasing]

You feel time stall around you. The war is happening again. It never stopped. Sometimes, you worry it is the only thing you know. 

But then Dean Winchester hands you a beer and clasps the arm of your vessel and his green eyes are brighter than the trees your Father brought forth on the third day. His calloused fingers brush against the back of your hand. His hair smells of the shampoo from the fifteenth motel he’s slept in this month. His smile is wide and beautiful and terrible because it does not meet his eyes, but for a moment when he looks at you, you think it does. You question if it does.

Dean Winchester smiles at you, and the world tilts on its axis and stars are called forth from darkness. Dean Winchester has fought for almost as long as he has existed, and he is growing tired. You know what it is to be tired. Odd, how you never realized how far down your exhaustion went until you curled up on the backseat of a car older than the man driving it and fell asleep as you crossed into Kansas; odd, how you never realized how very tired you were until you woke up from your sleep to the sound of a roughened voice singing along to the radio, sweeter and more holy than a choir of seraphim. 

You are a loyal soldier. But sometimes loyalty changes. 

And now it is a man who asks you to fight.

* * *

He is the sword of Heaven; you are clearly meant to be the soldier who wields him. You were tasked to wield him, to raise him. You were meant to control him.

(And yet it is he who wields you, turns you, changes you — you are his, and his only)

* * *

You love him. You love him, and you need him, and you think that he could never love you.

In the beginning, you had been so assured of your Father’s love. But you have seen your mirror image in this man, and you know that fathers can do terrible things by their sons. Sons are not meant to be their fathers’ soldiers forever. There is a way forward. A way up. A way out.

You find it in the quiet of the bunker. You find it in the solid cradle of his arms. You find it in the breeze on your face as you walk down the street for no reason other than you enjoy walking. You find it in the taste of a cheeseburger, the scent of a flower, the color green. 

You fight by his side. You fight for him. Fight him. Die for him. Watch him die. Feel him die beneath your hands, a squelch of blood and bone you will never unhear or unfeel or unlearn. Watch everything die and come to life again and you are so tired. 

You wake to blankets around your shoulders; you feel the phantom of his hand against your brow. 

You realize he only allows tenderness in moments where he thinks no one else will see, will notice. You realize he is his father in the daylight, his father in the gun in his hands, his father when he kills to kill, his father in the salt in his pocket and the silver in his blade and steel in his boots. He is his mother when everyone he loves sleeps, he is his mother when he finds blankets for your shivering body, his mother when he smiles at children, his mother when he fights to protect.

(Even when you forget everything, you remember him - you know him, you know that you are his, and you wish that he were yours, but Dean Winchester cannot be anyone’s because he has spent so long being everyone’s and you know the specific pain of not being your own. It is alright. You have had far crueler captains than Dean Winchester)

You promise your existence against your happiness. You stay away as long as you can. You stay away, and fight, and when he calls, you find yourself coming once more because you are His, and for one glorious, shining moment, you let him know that you are his.

You love him. You utter, wretched thing.

* * *

Empty.

Empty vessel.

Empty soul.

Empty grace.

Empty promises.

Empty words.

Empty.

* * *

A voice in the darkness. A voice, beautiful among all other voices. A voice. Calling out a name. Calling out a prayer. One steady, unbroken, unwavering call. 

He prays. He prays and prays and prays and begs for an answer. 

In the emptiness, you hear him. Your spirit solidifies, your soul cries out to his, you echo as he calls, and it resounds and replenishes, fulfills and forgives, as your voices surge out as one and you come into Being once more. 

You are gripped tight. You are called home. You are known, even here in the Empty, you are missed, you are needed. You are loved.

You are - 

I am -

_Castiel._

* * *

Castiel breathes, and he is his own. 

* * *

Jack comes to him, after.

“Should I call you God, now?” Castiel stands at the edge of an endless field while he waits for his nephew to answer.

Nephew. Nephilim. He smiles at the similarity, even as he waits.

“No. Castiel.” Jack touches his shoulder. 

They are themselves here. Towering, terrifying creatures in the echoes of their vessels, captured amongst carbon, celestial light made flesh and bone. 

Castiel turns to Jack, the child he had loved so dearly. Jack gives him a smile. He is more than Jack now. He is more than all of them, but he is still a child who was once loved so dearly.

“I did not bring you back just so you could wait here.” 

Castiel looks back across the field. The grain waves in imaginary wind, under a colorless sky. 

“Did I do it wrong?” Jack sounds so young. “...Is it … bad?”

“You did it right,” Castiel assures him. “You did everything right.”

“I don’t know about that.” Jack sighs and the field moves with it. “If I did it right, then why isn’t everyone happy?”

“Not happy?” Castiel frowns. “What kind of man would be unhappy in Heaven?”

Jack gives him a tired smile. “You know exactly what kind of man.”

A flash of light and shattering of sound - Jack is gone. 

Castiel remains. And the field stretches on.

* * *

It takes longer to summon the courage than Castiel would like to admit.

He argues with himself, at the edge of the field of forever. Jack gave him a happy ending, and Castiel simply is not in it. The happiness was constructed before Castiel, without Castiel. He should not interfere. He said his words. He allowed himself the selfishness. He was punished for it - 

He has already burnt his handprint against the skeleton of Dean’s soul. He cannot do it in Heaven. Castiel was once a soldier of Heaven. He was once righteous. He was once filled with impossible grace.

And Castiel once loved a man so much he gave his only life to the world.

He has done everything backwards - but he cannot condemn a man in the middle of his paradise.

Castiel waits, and waits, and waits. The field does not care, and continues to grow around him.

* * *

Across the field, a voice calls out, and Castiel stirs from where he has stood in reflection for what feels like an age, trying to remember who he was, and what he should stand for now that the war is over.

The voice calls. It calls out in prayer.

There are not many who would think to pray _in_ Heaven. 

But even here, at the end of all things, Castiel cannot turn from that voice. It calls; Castiel answers. 

There is a flash of light, a shattering of sound, and then he is there.

* * *

Dean Winchester is resplendent in plaid and leather. His jeans are fraying at the hems, and his hands are still calloused. Clasped in prayer, eyes lifted as though seeking an answer from a place higher than Heaven. 

The line of his glorious throat works over a sob as he tries to say something, but at the sound of Castiel shifting time and space around himself, Dean looks to the side, startled.

He is beautiful in his surprise.

“Cas.”

“Dean.” 

An echo of a different time, a different place. Layered in all that has happened between them, like fossils trapped amongst sediment that emerges as gravel in their throats.

Dean stands, and Castiel watches him walk forward, somehow graceful in the momentary clumsiness, his legs shaking a little.

“You were - I thought you were gone.” The words are harsh, but the grief in his eyes slams into Castiel. 

“I have returned.” Castiel tilts his head and smiles at him sadly, this beautiful man who looks at him with such anger.

“Yeah. Guess you have.” Dean huffs a bitter laugh and then wipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Damnit, Cas.” 

“I heard you,” Castiel explains. “I would not have come, but I heard you call for me.”

Dean sniffs again and shoves his hands in his pockets. His eyebrows lift and his jaw sets; shoulders go up and down in a vicious attempt at a shrug. 

“So what if I did? You hadn’t responded yet. Sorry that I didn’t realize tonight would be any different, I woulda cleaned the place up a bit.”

Castiel looks around the room that serves as Dean’s resting place here in paradise. The walls are bare. The bed, spartan. The floor, clean. One photo of Sam hangs near the door. 

(He sees a trench coat hanging in the open closet. He does not stare at it. He does not.)

“I … did not think you would want to see me.”

Dean stares at him. His eyes go to the trench coat hanging in the closet for a moment. His Adam’s apple bobs one more time. Again, his eyes lock onto Castiel. 

It is uncomfortable, to be stared at this much. Not uncomfortable in a terrible way; there is no shame in this gaze. It is uncomfortable because Castiel has never expected to be center of anything. A soldier is not the center. A fallen angel is not the center. And yet, Dean looks at him, and does not look to the rest of Heaven. It was his name that Dean called. It was his presence that had been missing from his paradise.

The knowledge is heady. Recklessness fills him, and he knows he will act on it soon. There can be no logic, no control, where Dean Winchester is concerned. 

“I always wanna see you.” Dean clears his throat and takes his hands out of his pockets where he had jammed them minutes ago. “Cas.”

“Well, now you can see me.” Castiel watches Dean’s cheeks turn a light pink. It is a pleasing color on him, a soft thing. A sweet blush. It makes something in him stir with wildness. “Whenever you want. You only need ask, and I will come, Dean.”

He will always come.

Dean considers this, full mouth set in a near-pout. It is distracting. Castiel stirs further against the cage of his grace.

“What if …” Dean works it over for a long second, staring at the floor. “What if I didn’t want you to … leave?”

Castiel frowns.

“Way I see it,” Dean continues, “Sam’s got Eileen up here. And their pack of brats. See ‘em once in a while, but that … that life, it wasn’t mine. I ain’t ever had anything that was mine. Except.”

When Dean lifts his eyes, they are rimmed in red, and swimming with ghosts Castiel knows too well. 

“Dean?”

“There was somethin’ I didn’t tell you.” Dean is not a nervous man, but he stammers here. “Y-you were brave, before. Saving me. Saving everyone. And I … I didn’t get to say anything.” 

Blushes. 

Castiel is a conflagration. A supernova. He cannot contain this feeling, this anticipation, this burning heat inside of him. It is too much.

“You don’t have to,” Castiel says quietly. Dean takes a step towards him, and Castiel’s next breath shudders although he has no need for breathing. “You didn’t.” Another step, and the anticipation quickens into a wildfire that consumes him, and he has to say it. “It’s okay, Dean. You don’t need to say anything. I hadn’t exactly needed an answer when _I_ said ... I wasn’t asking you for anything, after all.”

Dean has been asked of enough.

Dean stares at him for a second so long that civilizations could rise and fall in it. A hand goes to Castiel’s cheek; green eyes stare into the core of him; a pink bow parts, the middle of the bottom lip sweet and wet and tempting as fingers curl around the nape of Castiel’s neck and -

Dean kisses him. Castiel is stunned by it, but then remembers to move into it, to lean forward, to press his lips against Dean’s. It is a human act, one of the most human acts. It tastes like free will. It tastes like grace and forgiveness and _Dean,_ Dean Winchester is kissing him, and Castiel kisses him back.

A few seconds later, it’s over, and Dean pulls away slightly. He is nervous; it boils off of him. 

“Did I misunderstand?” Dean asks, voice rougher than Castiel has ever heard it. “Damnit, Cas, say something, hit me, do whatever y-”

“Hit you?” Castiel recoils at the idea, and lifts a hand slowly to thread through the short hair at the back of Dean’s neck. “No. I might … hit _on_ you.”

A wild pause that fills heartbeats, and then -

Dean lifts his eyebrows, an incredulous laugh puffing out from his holy lips.

Castiel smiles. “I told you, I’m funny now.”

“Yeah, you’re a real laugh riot,” Dean grumbles, somehow looking exasperated and fond at the same time, and the heat that consumes Castiel gentles into a warmth as they move together to kiss again.

It is wonderful, kissing. Castiel remembers kissing others in his vessel, but this one incinerates the memory of it until all that is left is the gentle pressure of Dean against his lips, Dean’s mouth slotted against his, his tongue tracing aimless patterns against his. 

Dean moves in waves; strong and fierce one moment, kissing so hard that Castiel is thankful he does not truly need to breathe; sweet and gentle the next, his thumb stroking over Castiel’s cheekbone, softer than the breeze.

They kiss for indeterminate centuries, and when they part, Dean’s eyes remain closed, his hands pressing somewhat desperately against the sides of Castiel’s neck. 

His brow is furrowed. His shoulders are tense, as though expecting a blow. Castiel frowns and touches his hip gently.

“Dean?”

Dean kisses him blindly in response, a harsher, more desperate kiss this time. Castiel is lost to it, trying to catch up, and when he manages to gentle it, he pulls Dean away, but holds his arms around him to keep him near. 

His eyes are still closed, his face screwed up as though he were in pain.

“Dean, what is it?” Worry fills him; Dean had pushed himself to do this, clearly. He did not want - Castiel could not, should not have - 

“Give me a minute,” Dean whispers, voice uneven and low. “Need to make sure-”

“Make sure of what, Dean?”

“I … I wasn’t ever sure that if I got what I wanted …” Dean takes a shuddering breath and looks around, wincing a little as he takes in his spartan room, the quiet cleanliness of it. 

He is tense until his eyes land on Castiel, and then his hand returns to touch Castiel’s cheek again.

“You’re really here.”

“I am.”

“You didn’t leave.”

“I didn’t.”

Castiel does not understand, but he is happy to reassure if it takes the wildness out of Dean’s eyes.

“They didn’t make me leave.” Dean’s voice cracks in the middle.

“Who?” Castiel frowns. “Jack? Jack would never-”

A tear slips down Dean’s face, and that worries Castiel - how many times has he seen Dean cry? So rarely, and hardly ever for his own pain. 

Dean’s face works to hide his barely held-back tears as he explains, “I always thought if I got … _you,_ if I got to have this - I wouldn’t be here anymore. I wouldn’t be allowed to …”

Castiel waits for him to finish, even though it aches in every moment as he knows what Dean will say.

“I wouldn’t be allowed to be happy.” Dean swallows and gathers his iron-clad control again. “I wouldn’t be allowed to be happy with you.”

(He remembers gripping this man tight and raising him from perdition, holding the fluttering thrash of his soul in his cupped hands and seeing the scars left by a careless father, the cruel words and taunts and vicious lessons that stopped that part of Dean Winchester from ever coming into being while the father was alive. He remembers the fear of being different, the fear of loving another man, the fear, always the fear - and Castiel sees that it has begun to shed, and it will hurt in its loss, and it will ache, but _oh,_ how beautiful it will be when Dean Winchester is _allowed_ to be-)

“After everything you have done, for Jack, for me, for the world - Do you really think you don’t deserve happiness?” Castiel tilts his head and half-laughs. It is such a human thing, the pain he feels when he beholds this man and loves him. 

“I-” Dean blinks a few times and then smirks a little. “I guess you could say I’m workin’ on it.”

Castiel’s smile feels like the unfurling of wings, like the dizzying drop through eternal spacetime, like the rapid expansion of the edge of the universe.

“I need to work on it too,” he admits, and Dean snorts.

“We should work on it together, huh?” Dean’s hand is on his shoulder, and he squeezes it gently, and it is the echo of each time he has touched Castiel, the angel of Thursday, the former soldier of Heaven, in this exact same way; it is the same and it is so different, and it is a miracle to be held by Dean in this place beyond Heaven, at the end of the war. 

“I find that idea agreeable,” Castiel determines after they have kissed for another short eternity. 

Dean half-smiles and pulls him towards the bed.

* * *

Later, after Dean’s hands have spanned Castiel’s back like wings and drawn maps over his ribcage, Dean will whisper _I love you, Castiel,_ into his sweaty collarbone, and Castiel will get to say the words back. His own prayer, his own call, his own free will. 

This time, Castiel feels nothing but _full._

**Author's Note:**

> my first destiel fic is also the first fic I've managed to write since September!! Thank you so, so much for reading - I hope you enjoyed, and please let me know what you thought!


End file.
